MARCH 13, 2009 -- Draka's (search Lightwave for Draka) BendBright bend-insensitive fiber-cable lineup has been extended to include a complete family of outside plant (OSP) cables, including loose tube, central tube, ribbon, and drop cable.

According to the company, BendBright offers a 10X bend tolerance improvement over standard single-mode fiber. In 2006 Draka introduced its second-generation G.657.B bend-insensitive fiber, BendBright-XS, which offers a 100X bend tolerance improvement and is designed for FTTH applications. A variation of BendBright�XS, BendBright-Elite, offers high performance at any bend radius for specialty applications such as optical components and military/aerospace markets. All of the fibers incorporate ColorLock-XS, an evolution of Draka's ColorLock fiber coating system that the company says improves micro-bending tolerance by 10X and is standard across its singlemode fiber-cable product line.

"Fiber-to-the-home deployments come with unique challenges for the installer and from day one we had that installer in mind as we developed these fiber cables," says Greg Williams, director of darketing. "For example, cables using BendBright-XS can be handled much like copper, enabling them to be bent around tight corners and even stapled to studs with virtually no signal loss."